


Sea Prunes

by itsmoonpeaches



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Family, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Home, Katara (Avatar)-centric, Kya II Centric, Love, Post-Avatar: The Last Airbender, Pre-Avatar: Legend of Korra, Returning Home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:53:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25057258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsmoonpeaches/pseuds/itsmoonpeaches
Summary: The day Kya left Republic City, the sunrise was one of the most beautiful she had ever seen. The clouds were wispy, feathered brush strokes painted across the heavens. They parted to reveal the crown of the sun on the horizon of Yue Bay. The yellows tinted the landscape, dappling the buildings on Air Temple Island behind her, and the dingy boat she was about to board on her way to the main harbor.-Or, Kya can't forgive Tenzin for leaving her and the family behind. She stops wondering why he did it.
Relationships: Aang & Bumi II, Aang & Katara & Sokka, Aang & Katara (Avatar), Aang & Kya II (Avatar), Aang & Sokka (Avatar), Aang & The Gaang (Avatar), Aang/Katara (Avatar), Bumi II & Katara, Bumi II & Kya II & Tenzin (Avatar), Katara & Kya II (Avatar), Katara & Sokka (Avatar), Katara & Tenzin (Avatar), Kya II & Sokka, Kya II & Tenzin (Avatar)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 107





	Sea Prunes

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written fanfiction in over 6 years, but since the resurgence of Avatar, I've come to this point. I've spent time writing my own stories for the past few years, so hopefully my writing isn't too atrocious?
> 
> This story was a long time coming. Ever since Korra originally aired, the quote "Where were you after dad died and mom was all alone?" that Kya says to Tenzin always struck a chord with me. So, this is kind of a way for me to delve into that. I hope you enjoy it!

The day Kya left Republic City, the sunrise was one of the most beautiful she had ever seen. The clouds were wispy, feathered brush strokes painted across the heavens. They parted to reveal the crown of the sun on the horizon of Yue Bay. The yellows tinted the landscape, dappling the buildings on Air Temple Island behind her, and the dingy boat she was about to board on her way to the main harbor. The saltwater sloshed the vessel from side-to-side. At least, she thought, she did not have many things to take with her.

Kya never really had a single home growing up, and this was largely due to the nature of her father’s job as the Avatar. But there were other things as well. Her mother, Master Katara, was adamant that they visit the Southern Water Tribe often. She and Uncle Sokka played a role in the governance of the tribe. While Sokka was the representative for the tribe in Republic City’s council, Katara was a revered master waterbender who not only helped to rebuild the South after the war, but also taught waterbendering students.

Katara had given lessons in both fighting and healing every time they were in the Southern Water Tribe and maintained a school in Republic City as well. Many other master waterbenders flocked to join her, and it became easier to alternate between them.

As she grew up, Kya looked forward to seeing her friends and family in both of her homes. As a waterbender herself, she always felt a connection to the Water Tribe. As a person of Air Nomad ancestry, she felt proud of her heritage during her days residing in the temple her father had built.

It was her father that she remembered as she waited on the dock, staring into the sparkling ripples of sunlight on the waves.

“My little sea prune,” he had always said with a laugh just to poke fun at her. Everyone knew that he never liked the taste of sea prunes. “Stop thinking too much! Look around you,” he used to say, “What do you see?”

When Kya was a child, she would always groan and come up with some ridiculous answer. (“Momo’s poopies!”) She could still recall the way his laugh would bounce from wall to wall, in a raucous, untamed sort of warmth. Like the winds whistling through the ten thousand trees on the island all at once. It was always infectious. 

She sighed heavily, leaning on one of the posts holding up the dock. She could make out the outline of the island the city had decided to claim as Avatar Aang Memorial Island. Fire Lord Zuko offered to provide the statue without any hesitation. Most of the world seemed to believe that was a political move on his part, but Kya knew better. She suspected that the funds would come from his personal coffers.

“Mom’s almost ready,” said a voice behind her. “Bumi is helping her pick what she needs to…leave behind.”

Her blue eyes flickered up to lock onto gray ones. “Tenzin,” Kya replied stiffly. “What are you doing here?”

Her younger brother frowned. His beard was scruffier than usual. His orange and yellow Air Nomad robes ruffled as he moved. “I live here,” he said.

Kya rolled her eyes. “Right,” she retorted, “and none of us do.”

Tenzin huffed, his face reddening and the blue arrow tattoo on his bald head contrasting with his skin. “Kya, what’s your problem? You’ve been acting like this for days! What do you want from me?”

She whipped around to face him completely. The water of the bay splashed up with her emotions, something that had not happened since she was a novice.

“What’s _your_ problem?!” she bellowed. She jabbed her pointer finger hard into his chest. “Why aren’t you helping us? Helping _mom?_ All you have been doing is going about your day like nothing has changed! Well guess what, little brother? Things _have changed!_ ”

Tenzin stared at her; his jaw clenched. His arms were crossed. He was unmovable, so unlike how an airbender should behave. This time there was no leaf in the wind to be blown away.

“Dad _died_ Tenzin!” she continued, shoving the burning in her throat downward. The fire burst there with each added kindling, growing, and expanding from her neck to her chest. “Mom hasn’t been herself for weeks. She won’t eat, she can barely sleep, she doesn’t even waterbend anymore! And what are you doing? I’ll tell you what you’re doing!” She paused for a beat, heat engulfing her with a burst of anger. “You’re avoiding us!”

“I’m not avoiding you,” he countered, exasperated. “I am simply fulfilling my daily duties.”

She glared at him. His passive attitude infuriated her. “Do you feel anything? What about dad? Don’t you miss him?” she asked. Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.

“I’ve let it go. Attachment is a form of distraction.”

She could not take it anymore. She slapped him upside the head. His face was turned to the side, a swelling mark marring his profile, but Tenzin appeared otherwise unfazed. When he straightened himself out, there was nothing except resignation. To what, Kya was not sure.

“I don’t think that’s what dad really meant to teach us,” Kya replied coldly. “Love and attachment are two different things. If you think all he cared about was attachment, you don’t remember what he taught us at all.”

But she remembered. Aang always emphasized that letting go meant finding balance, that love was pure energy, that attachment was not inherently evil, as nothing ever was. Attachment meant that you let your love control you, that your whole world centered around a single thing. “Love is freedom,” he had said. “If it is real, it isn’t something you forget. When you let go of your attachments, you share your love with everyone.”

She was never sure if he offered this advice because he was the Avatar, or because he was an Air Nomad. All she knew was that he did love and showed them love. Things with her father were always complicated, always a sudden turn from one diplomatic move, to the next. She wondered if his beliefs were what kept him sweet tempered and neutral, traits that she wished she had.

Unlike air which adapted well to a shift in environment, water changed with the tides of emotion. It was temperamental. She and her brothers both had aspects of both, but it was her father that grounded all of them. Ironic, she presumed, for a man who liked to fly.

Kya turned away. She did not want her brother to see the tears that finally fell. She stalked to the edge of the boat, and with a confident step, she boarded.

Soon after, Bumi came waddling out with baggage at his sides. Katara trailed behind him. Her white-streaked hair was tied into a bun, a hairstyle she had recently taken up. As far as Kya could recall, her mother had always worn her hair either half up or in a braid. She supposed that this was another change she would have to get used to. At least she had kept the delicate loops of hair that framed her face. Her father had gushed about how beautiful her mother’s hair was.

Tenzin backed to the end of the dock, glancing at Katara with a shining gaze. Kya almost did not notice.

“Well mom,” Bumi boomed as he heaved the few bags onto the boat, “ready for the move?”

Katara did not answer, opting instead to stare back at the towering temple that peaked out above the copse upon the hill behind them. She looked at it for what seemed like an eternity, eventually touching the pendant of her mother’s necklace that rested in the crook of her collarbone. She sighed, closed her eyes, turned away.

Kya and Bumi shared a look over their mother’s shoulder. Katara had been doing that a lot lately, choosing to either ignore when someone addressed her, or not hearing it at all. Kya had often heard of these things in the healing huts she had worked in, about widows and widowers losing part of themselves.

Her mother always seemed so strong, and she still was. In a way, she was handling her husband’s passing a lot better than most were. However, Kya knew that this was more than just the death of her husband. This was the death of her best friend. There were few people in the entire world that had found their other half in childhood, who had traveled the world and saved them, who had shared their lives from practically the beginning.

This would not be easy for anyone in their family, and she suspected that her mother may not ever truly be whole for the rest of her life. The thought broke something inside her.

“Let’s go, mom,” Kya said with a gentle tone. She placed a hand on her back and watched her step in.

“Take care,” Bumi added with a wave. He forced a grin. “We’ll come visit you down there as often as we can. I’m on leave from the United Forces next month. I’m planning on stopping by. Say hi to Uncle Sokka for me!”

Tenzin remained silent. Kya pretended that he had said something.

Bumi unlatched the boat. Kya took her stance after her mother sat down and commanded the water around them to propel them forward into the harbor. The whole trip until they reached the larger ship, Katara never opened her eyes.

The two of them were met with a sailor who bowed deeply. Kya noticed that he denied looking her in the eye. He and one other man took what little they had into the cargo hold. She led her mother up the ramp, and into their rooms. It would be a few days before they reached the shores of the Southern Water Tribe.

When the ship began to move, Kya had taken to the deck. She leaned on the railing, picturing the ice and snow. Instead, she saw part of her childhood drifting past her. As much as she called the South her home, Republic City was as well. The fact that she and her siblings had come to this decision was drastic, and a part of her remained hesitant to call it the right one.

Her mother needed to be away for a while, Kya thought. She hoped.

“Lunch at the mess hall!” someone yelled. A bell clanged.

She decided that she and her mother would eat in their quarters. She made her way to the back of the line, watching as tired workers and families swarmed around her.

“Two bowls of stewed sea prunes,” Kya requested without thinking. It was automatic, instinctual. Like her heart knew more than her mind. The plump woman serving her nodded, scooping up the bowls with steaming soup. The familiar purple lumps bobbed in the broth.

She could almost hear her father feign a gagging reflex. “At least someone in this family likes those!” he had sniggered one night. “You and your mother are the only ones!”

She fought back a smile.

The people seemed to part around her like the waves, and she made it back to their rooms without any problems. She did not bother to knock when she arrived. She balanced the tray with one hand, opening the wooden door with the other.

When she entered, her mother was sitting on her bed, right next to the round window. Kya’s bed was on the opposite side. Katara looked like she was in deep thought, seeing only the ocean crash against the hull outside.

“I’ve brought us some food,” Kya said. Her words were soft. “It looks delicious.” She prayed that it was anyway. She placed the tray on the low table next to the sitting area,

Katara got up and sat on a plush cushion near the table. Without a word, she blew on her bowl and began to eat. Kya was not expecting her to say anything.

The days on the boat went on much the same. Katara never spoke, and Kya conversed with thin air. If Kya was honest, it was more than a little painful.

The food was a consistent stream of Water Tribe delicacies, from noodle dishes, to seared fish, to even the Northern Water Tribe’s buffalo yak steaks. It was a bit excessive. Though Kya never took a vow to abstain from eat meat like Tenzin and their father had, her family always had meals where they were without it.

More and more, she found herself gravitating toward the seaweed salads and other vegetable-based dishes over the sticks of barbequed arctic hen.

She was eating a bowl of noodles on the balcony of their room when the first sign of snowfall came. She glanced up, seeing the gray skies—skies like the color of her father’s eyes—and watched as white fluff danced to the tip of her nose.

She knew what that meant. She slurped down the rest of her noodles in no time.

In another hour, the captain rang the bell. “Land ho!” was shouted from port to starboard, bow to stern. She quickly woke her mother to begin gathering their things.

Docking was completed in another hour, and another two after that, she and Katara were being escorted off the ship with their baggage. Sokka was waiting for them, a sort of pained smile on his face when he saw his sister. The snow swirled around him, coasting on gusts of air.

“Welcome home,” he said, looking from Katara to Kya. His gaze lingered on Kya. An unspoken message passed between them. “I’ll help you unpack.”

The streets that led to their house were eerily clear, like no one was brave enough to walk into their path. Though, Kya supposed that was exactly it. The whole world did not know what to do with them anymore. She felt like she was on constant alert.

Kya led Katara to a pelt near a stoked fire. She left her there and she and her uncle unwound their bags in a different room.

“Kya,” he intoned, uncertain. “I’m sorry I left the city so early I—”

She shook her head, interrupting him. “No, you were right to leave, Uncle Sokka. You’re still the chief here. Your people needed you. Republic City has had a new Southern Water Tribe council member for a few years already.”

Sokka chuckled. “Well, Aang taught you well, didn’t he? You sound like him.” Then as soon as the small flame of mirth came, it evaporated. “I wish he was here.”

Kya focused on arranging folded clothing. “You’re not the only one,” she responded.

There was a pause. Sokka smoothed out a layer of linens atop the bed they were unpacking on. “When our mother died, my sister took over our family,” whispered Sokka. “Our dad and I didn’t know what to do, how to take care of ourselves, how to keep going. There was a war going on. Dad was a mess.” He scanned his niece, a sad smile playing on his lips. “In a lot of ways, you’re just like her when that happened.”

Kya swallowed, choosing to reach into another satchel.

“You’re a lot like both of them,” he finished with an exhale.

The bubble in her chest was close to erupting. “What am I going to do without them?” she let out, voice cracking. “Bumi won’t be here until next month, mom is lost, dad is _gone…_ and Tenzin…Tenzin doesn’t even _care!”_

A cry exploded from her throat, and the tears and feelings that she had held in for weeks exploded forth in a cascading waterfall. Her shoulders were shaking, her breaths heaving. She did not register her uncle pulling her into his embrace until she had her face pressed against his shoulder.

He brought them onto the bed, and he had a hand on her head like he was comforting a child. She remembered how he used to placate her when she scraped a knee, but this was something else entirely. She wished that it was that simple.

“I can’t tell you to not feel sad,” he remarked. There were tears in the tone of his voice as well. “If I did, I would sound like the world’s biggest hypocrite. It’s hard when you lose family. Nothing is ever the same. You lose more than the person, but the people around you too. Not in the same way…but in ways you didn’t figure you could.”

Kya sobbed harder. “How do you make it stop hurting?” she asked in between breaths.

Sokka pulled her closer. “It doesn’t stop,” he said. The way he spoke to her was matter of fact. She was no longer a child. He had always seemed to respect that. “Aang is gone, and I hate it, but…listen.”

He tugged at her arms and forced her to look at him in the eyes. His were red with grief. “There was something he said to us once back when the war just finished, that I think you should hear.”

Kya sniffed, rubbing at her cheeks. With anyone else, she might have felt embarrassed. As a woman in her thirties, crying so much felt wrong. But her uncle was never one to judge.

His face was serious, thoughtful. He was in another place, another time. “When the war ended, Zuko was frustrated at himself. He couldn’t stop blowing up at the littlest things. It got so bad that he and Aang had to fight it off, and then after a battle with the Earth King and a few negotiations, we started forming the United Republic.” He shook his head with a smirk. “But you know all that history stuff already. What you need to know is that during all of that, Zuko was blaming himself. He was scared that he was turning into his father. We were all so young, and it was hard to put the burden of a whole nation on his shoulders, but it had to be done.

“So, there was this one night when we were all taking a break in the palace, and Iroh was making us tea. Out of nowhere, Zuko asked Aang if he blamed him for the loss of the Air Nomads. When Aang said no, Zuko was beside himself with frustration and confusion. ‘How could you say that?’ he said.”

Kya hiccupped, the sobs starting to subside.

“But do you know what your dad said?” Sokka asked, moving her chin up so that she could see him. “He said that he learned that love was a form of energy. It sounded like Avatar spiritual mumbo jumbo at the time, but the way he explained it, it’s something I understand now. He was always so much wiser than me. He said that love doesn’t disappear when someone leaves, but that it’s reborn into a different form, and that he felt that the Air Nomads were alive in us.”

Kya remembered her father’s teachings. She smiled.

“I got you there, didn’t I?” snickered Sokka. “I still got some tricks up my sleeve.”

She wiped at her eyes and took a deep breath.

They worked together in silence for a while, moving things about the room and unfolding or refolding items. There was a calm quiet about the situation, like there was nothing outside of their little home. For a moment, it was like she was back at the Air Temple and helping with chores.

There was a lot to do, and a lot that needed to be said. Sokka had gone to his sister later that day, and the days afterward. She and her uncle knew it would not be an effortless or straightforward journey. There was no recovery from this.

A month later, Bumi visited as promised, gracing them with his presence with a twirl of boisterous fashion. Even though he was still himself, he was also different. Her older brother laughed at something, then almost seemed to think of something else on the spot. He was subdued, though not at the same time. Kya started to understand what Sokka meant.

A year had passed. Tenzin only wrote one letter. He had taken his place as the Air Nomad representative. Kya’s anger at him singed her.

Katara spoke more, but she seemed apprehensive as she walked around the tribe. She taught at her school, and it distracted her. Nevertheless, Kya knew what she was thinking: the world was looking for the next Avatar. They did not know whether it would be within a few years or a few months, but the day would come when an Avatar would appear in one of the Water Tribes. Her mother was looking for her husband in every infant that she was requested to heal. 

Bumi came often, but Tenzin did not come at all. Kya began to resent him. How could he abandon them? Did he not know how much she needed him, how much their mother longed to see him?

She vented her frustrations to both Bumi and Sokka. She asked Zuko for advice when he came on a political trip, begged him to ask his daughter Izumi what she thought. She wrote to the Bei Fongs. No one could give her an adequate answer or good enough reassurance.

And then, when a year was encroaching on two, she started to give up on Tenzin. She stopped speaking of him.

She continued living with her mother, being there for her. She looked a little more alive than she had been. Kya took to cooking dinners for them every night after they both returned from either the school or the healing huts.

Kya stood over a pot of boiling sea prunes, silently listening to her mother enter the house then sit on the pelt near their fire.

In a few minutes, the food was done. She brought over their bowls and settled next to her mother, offering dinner to her.

However, Katara was not paying attention to the bowl that steamed in front of her. She was holding a picture of their whole family that was taken a few years before. Each of them was grinning at some hilarious sight beyond the camera. Even in black and white, Aang, Katara, Bumi, Kya, and Tenzin looked so vibrant.

Kya could not forget that day. Aang had insisted they take an updated photograph. He dragged them to the marketplace in downtown Republic City on a weekend, spouting out ideas the whole time. In the end, they all convinced him that it was easier to take a picture without ridiculous costumes from "Love Amongst the Dragons". Instead, Bumi had spotted Toph chasing a man who liked to fling his clothes off in public while they were in position for the cameraman. It was difficult not to smile.

“Tenzin looks so much like him,” Katara said, disrupting Kya’s thoughts. Her voice trembled ever so slightly. 

Kya glanced over at the print. With a sudden realization, her heart dropped into her stomach. He did look like her father. So much so that it stung. From the corner of her eye, she saw a tear hit the glass of the frame her mother was clutching. Tenzin’s face was blurred by the droplet, obscured by painful memory.

“He does, doesn’t he?” responded Kya, words oddly flat.

She would not deny her bitter resentment and frustration at her brother. It was hard enough to forgive him. But now she understood.

When Kya cooked dinner the next day, she decided that she would stop making stewed sea prunes.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback and comments would be appreciated :)


End file.
